You don't really understand Putin. The guy has basically taken a hard look at the suicide of the West and determined that Russia is not going to participate in anything similar. Russians were literally starving in 1999 and when SlicKKK KKKlintler bombed a totally innocent Slavic Orthodox nation for 80 days and nights to take the Juanita Broaddrick story and Chinagate off the front pages of US newspapers, Russia was not able to do anything about it. Putin has brought Russia all the way back from that ****y state of affairs.
What's not to like?